


washed clean

by glitteration



Series: washed clean [1]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, F/M, Practical Magic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-11-02
Packaged: 2018-08-28 07:05:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8436094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: Every Griffin women is given a blessing and a curse: a sister and a promise that anyone foolish enough to love them won't live to regret that choice.or:The Practical Magic AU Sam didn't know she asked for.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [convenientmisfires](https://archiveofourown.org/users/convenientmisfires/gifts).



> Happy Kabbymasween to Sam (aka @abigailkanes) who is wonderful and amazing and will hopefully forgive me for posting this in five parts. I LOVE YOU, SAM, YOU ARE THE WIND BENEATH MY VERBOSE WINGS.

It starts with a curse, and with sisters. 

 

* * *

 

 

The path from the unpaved driveway to the house is lined with trees. Abby squints up at them, Callie's smaller hand clasped tight in her own.

"There's a cat!" Her arm tenses, and Abby holds on tighter as Callie tries to make a break for it and run the rest of the way.

"We don't know if she's home yet. _Wait_ , Callie—"

The soles of her shoes flash white against the brilliant green of the lawn as she takes off towards the cat, braids flying behind her.

Abby sighs and shoulders Callie's abandoned suitcase alongside her own, staggering a little under the weight. By the time she's made it up to the porch, Callie is pouting and staring at the space where the cat used to be.

"I just wanted to hold it!"

"Sometimes you have to let good things in life come to _you_ , kiddo."

"Aunt Raven!" Callie's shriek would make Abby roll her eyes at any other time, but this time she echoes it, dropping the bags to follow her sister's example and fling her arms around Raven's waist.

"Whoa, watch the goods." Her arms wrap neatly around them both, and for the first time since dad died Abby feels even a little bit safe. "When you both get so huge? Last time I saw you," she clucks Callie under the chin, winking at Abby like they're the only two people in the world in on a particularly juicy secret. "You were this big."

She holds her fingers a few inches apart, and Callie laughs for the first time since the funeral. "Was _not_."

"Were too." Herding them inside, Raven's brace makes little jingling sounds with each step. "All right, I'm thinking it's time for enough chocolate to choke a horse. What do you two say?"

 

* * *

 

Life with Raven is different from life at home. Raven stays up late and gets up later, and she doesn't order them to go to bed even though she's not.

There's growroom and a garden, and another garden, and then _another_ garden just for herbs—and there are _flowers_ , everywhere. Growing into fist-sized blossoms, crawling up the walls of the house and curling gently around the roof, an encircling bower of red and purple and blue and orange forming a shield around those lucky enough to belong to that house.

Raven tends the rose garden, but the rest seem to grow on their own. When Abby asks about it, she just grins. "I let them go where they want, and where they want to go has always worked out okay."

Abby frowns, immediately put off by the idea of ceding control like that. "But what if you don't like where they grow?"

"Then I'd start over, and see if maybe that wouldn't give them the inspiration." Setting down her shears, Raven hitches her good hip against against a tree and looks down at her, a little sad. "A little advice from somebody who had to learn the hard way? Learn to bend. The other option's not great."

The insatiable curiosity that keeps her studying long past the point where Callie has lost interest in her own homework digs its claws into her, demanding she ask what Raven means; what other option, and how does she know? But Raven's never sad, and seeing the evidence that she can be feels like something Abby ought to be sorry for bringing up.

She nods, overly serious. "Okay, I'll learn." She'll try, at least, even if the idea sounds horrible.

Sadness dropping away, Raven's cheeks crease as she grins. "You're a terrible liar, kid. Don't ever change."

 

* * *

 

Summer unspools peacefully, until the very end. They're playing by the fence that lines the property when the ugly side of life in Arkadia reveals itself. It's not windy for the first time in weeks, beautiful outside, but Abby wakes that morning with a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

" _Look_ , there they are." The words are a hushed whisper from the gate. A girl, dark hair in neat braids, stands there, her little hands gripping the wood with anxiety and excitement. Five more faces pop up, then three more.

Callie beams, wide and genuine. "Hi! Do you want—"

The offer to join them isn't even entirely out before the first rock hits her shoulder. The next is bigger, and it strikes her right on the chin. Their success emboldens the little girl's followers and they let loose with stones of their own, pelting Callie where she sits and then Abby when she drops to the ground to shelter her sister with her own body.

"Witch, witch!" They chant the word, sing-song and mocking. "Witch, witch, you're a _bitch_!"

At the last word they all break into hysterical giggles at their own daring and, out of stones, run back to the main road and the protection of distance from the house on the cliff and the strange women who inhabit its walls.

Callie cries quietly, fat tears trickling down her cheeks as Abby rocks her, whispering the nonsense words she dimly recalls their mother using before she lost the ability to comfort herself, and with it anyone else.

That's how Raven finds them, curled around each other and still, with little red indents marking where each stone had hit.

Her lips tighten in anger, but she holds her arms open for them and her eyes are nothing but warm. "Come on, you two. Time for dinner."

 

* * *

 

"Why do they hate us?" Callie's the one who asks, and Abby fights back the urge to say it doesn't matter, that they're mean and they don't need them, anyway, they just need each other and Raven and not a single person more.

"Because they don't understand us." Raven takes a sip of water, then frowns and adds, "And because they're afraid of us."

"Why?" Callie's old enough to understand that magic makes them different, but not jaded enough to think anyone could look at the way Raven can send a spray of rose petals up in the air and make them dance, creating faces and animals before letting them fall back to the earth and find it anything but wonderful.

"Same reason: they don't understand us." Raven pauses, reflectively. "And then there's the curse."

"The curse?" Beside her, Callie's eyes are wide, fear forgotten in pursuit of a new story. There's a glint in Raven's eyes that says she wanted that to happen, and under the table Abby squeezes her hand in thanks. "What kind of curse?"

Squeezing back, Raven lifts a wineglass with her other hand, taking a sip and then setting it back on the table and tapping the surface with one finger, setting off a series of ripples. "That kind."

"A wine curse?" Abby's voice is skeptical, and she forgets momentarily that if Raven's just making up stories to keep Callie from thinking about the way the stones had felt when they found their target, she shouldn't try to poke holes in them.

Releasing her hand to ruffle her hair, Raven does it again and watches the red sea inside her cup pitch and heave. "So literal. No, not a wine curse. Look again, what do you see?"

"A _ripple_ curse." Callie breaks in from her side of the table, voice triumphant. "I'm right, aren't I?"

"Ding ding ding, give the girl her prize." Raven takes another sip, then continues. "A long time ago, an ancestor of yours cast a spell that went sideways, and now every Griffin woman lives with a curse and promise."

She leans back, waiting for one of them to break and demand to know more.

"So what _are_ they?" Abby beats Callie to the punch, forgetting all her own anger in the pursuit of new knowledge.

"Every Griffin is born a sister, and a witch. If a Griffin has children, it's daughters—two of them. That's the promise."

"And the curse?" Callie's eyes are wide as dinner plates, food long since forgotten on the table.

"If a man falls in love with a Griffin woman, and she loves him back..." Shaking her head, Raven casts Abby a sympathetic look when she stiffens beside her. "That man won't be around much longer. Maybe not right away, but it always happens."

 

* * *

 

Callie accepts the romance and spins outside to dream up the sort of man who might die of love for _her_ someday, but Abby's preoccupations have always been more practical in nature.

"That's why dad died? Because he was in love with mom, and she loved him back?"

Raven's shoulders stiffen a little, and she finishes washing the dish in her hands before she turns around to answer. "That's right."

"So why did she let herself love him?" If the curse needs love to take root, then the solution seems clear enough.

"You are way too young to be talking like that, kiddo." Abby makes a face and Raven chuckles, crooking a finger at Abby and then picking her up without much effort and setting her on the counter near the sink so they can have this conversation eye to eye. "Love doesn't work like that. It's like the flowers."

"Love is like the flowers." This time the face Abby makes is disgruntled enough Raven laughs long and hard, only her companionable lean into Abby's side keeping it from mockery.

"It does what it wants and you just hang on and hope to God you enjoy the end product." Raven gestures grandly, an impresario. "Just like the flowers."

Her hair glints in the fading light filtering through the stained glass window over the sink, pink and blue and green catching and holding on the strands and forming miniature flares. She's the most beautiful thing Abby's ever seen, even more beautiful in person than the picture of her mom kept on her nightstand.

Abby hesitates, then gives voice to the question that's been building inside her for over a year. "Why aren't you old?" She knows the words are too inelegant to be anything but offensive, but what Callie accepts without qualms she can't help but question and the way Raven looks the same no matter how long passes between visits has been niggling at her for months.

"You noticed that, huh?" Raven doesn't look offended—instead, she looks proud. "You're growing into the power early. Your mom took a lot longer than that to notice and ask, and she had some oomph to her."

"But _why_?" Raven's praise is gratifying, but now that the topic is open Abby can't be patient. "Mom and Grandma both had pictures of you, and you looked the same in them too."

Sighing, Raven looks down at her hands and flexes them, watching the play of tendons under fragile skin. "A long, long time ago I got cocky. I had a lot of oomph, myself." Shaking herself like a dog coming out of water, she looks back up at Abby. "I wanted something I wasn't supposed to have, and I paid the price." She taps her leg, instructive. "Magic always has a price, Abby. It requires sacrifice. You work a big spell, you stand to lose more than you might think."

"Like you did?"

Nodding, Raven plays one of the necklaces hidden under her shirt, silver chain glinting as she tugs it around and around. "Yeah, this was definitely unplanned."

"Was it because you loved somebody?" The question bursts from the secret place in her belly, the well of heat that just knows the sadness behind Raven's eyes is because she'd been in love. "It was, I can tell. I'm never going to fall in love."

At first, Raven doesn't answer. Then she strokes a hand down the side of Abby's cheek, looking old in ways that have nothing to do with aging and everything to do with remembered pain. "A little more life advice? Try not to make promises you can't keep."

 

* * *

 

The look on Raven's face stays with her, bleak in a way she's never seen. Love made Raven look like that—love took her parents, one by one.

There's a spell in the book Raven gave her to call up a true love. Finding that page again, Abby brings the book down to the kitchen. The ingredients are easy enough to collect and put together; no animal hearts or blood, like some of the others she'd read.

"He'll be... smart."

"What are you doing?" Callie stands in the doorway, feet bare and hair still mussed from sleep. "I heard you get up."

"A spell. Want to help?" Her eyes light up at the offer, thrilled to be part of the fun for once. Raven says her powers will arrive when they're meant to, but that hasn't made watching her sister pull ahead any easier.

"Sure." Dragging a stool up to the workbench, Callie tucks her feet under the rungs and peers down at the bowl. "What's the spell for?"

"It's a love spell."

Her brow wrinkles. "But I thought you didn't..."

"I don't. Not ever." Voice softening, Abby points out the spell in the open book. "It's to call your true love."

"How does that help?"

"Because if I make somebody perfect, then I'll never have to fall in love. I'll always be waiting for someone who isn't real."

Callie looks like she wants to argue the point further, but the lure of taking part in a spell overwhelms the urge. "So what next?"

"We make a list. He'll be smart, and kind... and good with babies. And he has to like cats." Abby plucks a petal off one of the blossoms clustered near the wall for each qualification and adds it to the bowl. "He'll be fair and honest, no matter what, and funny. His favorite shape will be..." Looking up and through the glass ceiling to the night sky outside, Abby grins. "A star. And he'll be able to make perfect grilled cheese."

Callie laughs, nightgown glowing in the moonlight streaming in through the windows. "And he'll have a _scar_."

"A scar?"

"A scar."

Shrugging, Abby adds it to the list. "And he'll have a scar, on—" She looks to Callie.

"His... leg."

"A scar on his leg." Plucking another petal, Abby raises it in a salute before dropping it into the bowl with the rest, transitioning into the words the book said needed to close the spell out. "He'll hear my voice a world away, and always answer my call."

Opening the door outside, Abby makes her way to the cliff, Callie hot on her heels. The grass is wet and cool beneath her bare feet, and she stops just short of where its soft cushion gives way to the jagged pebbles at the edge. It's close enough, and the sea glints invitingly in the moonlight, seemingly already in on their plan.

"What now?"

"Shhh." Abby stares down at the bowl, willing the petals to stir. Slowly, haltingly, they rise; then with growing confidence, until they're a gentle spiral of color, white and blue and purple and then they're gone, floating over the edge and skimming over the water before disappearing out of sight.

"Did it work?" Callie's voice is hushed, and the gaze she turns on Abby is awed, with a tinge of jealousy pulling back the edges.

"I think so." _I hope so_ , Abby amends internally, but it's no use worrying and Callie has turned to look at the horizon wistfully again so Abby tackles her to the grass and digs her fingers into her ribs until she's shrieking with laughter, all traces of separation between them washed clean.

 

* * *

 

"I have to get out of this town." In the last year or two Callie speaks in declarations more often not, but this one sounds less like high drama and more like a statement of purpose. Abby props herself up on her elbows, peering at her. Callie notices and makes a face. "What? It's driving me crazy. Don't pretend you want to stay here forever, either."

"I don't know." Medical school means leaving Arkadia, but that's not forever. Somehow, Abby's always pictured her future being in a house on a cliff, Callie by her side and two little girls in bed upstairs, one dark and one fair. "Do you really hate it that much?"

"No, not all the time. I love it, when the moon's just right over the water..." She flops back on the bed and sighs. "But it's so goddamn small, Ab. And I feel like I'm always being watched... I just want to go see new things, and meet new people. People who don't have any idea who I am."

"You could always—"

"School's your thing. I want to travel. And you're leaving once this year's over, so you can't say I can't leave."

"But you'll come back?"

"Once you do. I'll never leave you." Serious, Callie catches her gaze and holds it. "We're going to get old together, you and me and Raven and all the cats. Three crazy old cat ladies."

"Promise?"

"I promise." Sitting up, she reaches towards her nightstand and grabs her purse, fishing inside it while gesturing for Abby to come close with the other. "Here, give me your hand."

"Why?" She gives Callie her hand despite the question, starting when Callie ends her search and pulls a pocket knife from the depths of her purse. "Cal, what are you—"

"Do you trust me?"

"Of course."

"Then trust me."

The sting of the cut barely registers, not when Callie is inches away and they're two halves of a whole and not just two people, barely flinching when Callie carves a similar shallow line in her palm before taking Abby's hand in hers and pressing the cuts together.

"There. Now my blood is your blood, and your blood is mine. It's _our_ blood, Ab. Nothing can ever keep us apart now. We're a part of each other. No matter where we are."

 

* * *

 

The city is nothing like Arkadia. Campus is far enough away from downtown Polis to give the illusion that she's back home, but nothing can recreate the sedate pace and open book of living in a small town.

At first it's exhilarating. Then it's terrifying, and then it's just how life is. In the blink of an eye she's walking across the campus and nodding to people who aren't afraid of one of the town freaks, who see Abby and know her last name and don't find anything to fear in that.

Dating is hit or miss, on the other hand. A lack of stigma doesn't mean she's not the same girl she was at home, and that girl isn't the Griffin sister known for having a good time. Still: she's not lonely, and she's not alone.

Then she locks eyes with a pirate from across the room at a Halloween party and everything changes.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Callie,_

_I met a guy._

 

* * *

 

Jake wanders into her life and never wanders back out, and Abby thinks she finally understands why Raven let the flowers grow where they would. Without conscious effort to make it happen he fits perfectly into her life, in every single way a man could fit.

They have sex for the first time in her bed, windows thrown open so the moonlight can shine in. He cradles her between his hands like she's something delicate and precious, even when his grip leaves bruises she'll inspect the next day with a little wince and a grin of remembrance.

After, she realizes she left handprints smeared down his back, shining lurid green and violet and blue like a neon sign.

He spots them in the mirror and asks if she can do it again around Halloween. That's when she thinks, _yes_. Yes, yes, yes.

He's not the man she made up all those years ago—he's not perfect, but something better. He's real, and he's warm and funny and when he wakes up in the morning the sleepy happiness on his face makes her heart thump faster.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Abby,_

_MARRY HIM._

 

* * *

 

"I mean hell, Abby, why don't I just take your name?" He throws it out one morning over coffee while they're planning the wedding, like that's just something every man would do. "I'm not all that attached to mine, and yours has all that family history you don't wanna talk about."

Jake has a singular talent of calling out her bullshit without ever pushing for the secrets she's not sure she can give him.

"You want to take my name?"

"Honey," he swats her ass lightly on the way to the coffeemaker, laughing and dodging her half-hearted retaliatory smack. "I'd be _honored_ to."

 

* * *

 

Clarke is perfect. She has big blue eyes and a fuzzy little head and Abby's more in love with her than she thought possible, with this miracle she and Jake made.

The curse weighs heavy on her thoughts for the first year of her life, heart in her throat whenever Jake leaves for the day. But then he's home safe at the end of each one and the fears drains away year by year, until it's barely a concern.

She's not arrogant enough to think loving Jake broke something Raven swears is real, but curses and coincidence have a lot of overlap. Maybe the Griffin curse is just another word for fear, a way for lonely women to comfort themselves that some grand design stole their lovers and not the simple fact that life doesn't promise anything will last.

Jake makes it easy to believe that the curse can't touch him. He's strong, easy in his own skin, without a drop of darkness in him. When she looks for it he has a light inside, yellow and warm and steady as a candle in a window. Even when their second daughter fails to quicken inside her despite their best efforts, Abby refuses to see it as a sign; or if it is, it's a sign Jake's beyond the reach of curse and coincidence. Each Griffin is a witch, and each one half of a whole. Before long it becomes a talisman. As long as Clarke remains an only child, it means Jake is untouchable.

 

* * *

 

The accident is on a Wednesday. Clarke is at ballet, and the doorbell rings and Abby drops her mug on the floor, tea spattering everything like arterial spray because she _knows_.

The officer is very kind and unnerved by her building energy and Abby can't force herself to care or do anything about it, because Jake is _dead_. The curse was supposed to be a series of unfortunate coincidences that built themselves into legend because nothing else makes sense, but Jake is dead and it was loving her that did it.

She hires someone else to sell the house and takes Clarke back to the island; to Arkadia, and the house on the cliff with its rickety steps and wide porch and familiar cheerful disarray and Raven, who can watch Clarke while Abby allows herself to fall apart.

 

* * *

 

Miami is nothing like Polis, like Polis was nothing like Arkadia. Miami is sticky and fast-paced and sleek, a jungle cat and not a sleepy old tom. Abby would hate it.

Callie loves it. There's no Griffin name to live down, no perfect older sister's footsteps to follow. Just empty sand, miles and miles of it, waiting for her to decide where to go, and a party to stumble across at each stop; each one a roadmap to where she was meant to be. To _Diana_.

Diana's place is made almost entirely of glass, reflecting the desert sun from all angles. She says she likes the transparency; her people know she'll tell them the truth if even her house can't conceal its secrets but the glass is tinted, blurring the shapes inside into misshapen monsters, prowling that transparent space in a way that gives a suggestion of form but no substance.

She's full of shit, and she knows it. It's part of what makes her so appealing.

There are little shots of something garish and red on trays scattered across the room, and Callie grabs one and tosses it back without bothering to find out what it is, savoring the burn of liquor from her throat to her belly.

The hands that slide over her eyes are cool, a direct contrast to the heat of the alcohol and the city.

"Diana." Lips curling in a feline smile, Callie twists around to face her, taking in the icy blonde hair and purposefully casual white linen. She always manages to look crisp, even in the stickiest Miami heat. "I thought you had a meeting tonight."

"Oh, I did." In her heels, Diana is almost a half a foot taller and Callie savors the way it only makes her seem like she's in complete control of herself and the world around her. The curse has only ever taken men, and Diana's so _strong_. She'll be the one to outlast it, Callie can just tell. "But now it's over, and I can get back to more important matters."

She tastes like almonds and expensive vodka, and the rest of the party melts away as Diana takes her hand and leads her back to the bedroom, ignoring the rest of the party as if it's not even there.

After, she lights a cigarette and walks to one of the windows looking out to sea, unashamedly naked. "Come here, Callie."

Grumbling a little Callie rises and crosses to her, wrapping her arms around Diana from behind, nuzzling at the the back of her neck. "Fine, I'm up. Why am I up?"

"What do you see?"

Nonplussed, Callie raises her head and scans the scenery below. "...water?"

Diana's chuckle is condescending. "Well, obviously. What else?"

Bristling, Callie scans the beach below and tries to puzzle out what it is she's meant to see. "Sand, a couple umbrellas. People. Diana, what am I—"

"Power, Callie. What you're seeing is power. Or the potential for it, at least." She points at the hotel down the way, looming over the city and dominating the city block around it. "I'm going to buy it. I was thinking about finding a new office space for the foundation, and the owner's been going through..." She clicks her tongue and pauses, as if looking for the right words. "Marital difficulties."

"So you're going to take advantage of that?" Diana's talk about business is vague, but she's not a fool. Diana's a lot of things, but philanthropist is just the public face.

"All's fair." Grabbing one of her hands, Diana brings it up to her lips to kiss the back of it. "I get what I want in life, and then I keep it." Dropping her hand, Diana turns and pushes her back against the window before sinking to her knees. "And I take care of what's mine." Her fingers dig into Callie's hips, hard. "Forever."

Callie's head thunks back against the glass, pleasure chasing away the hints of unease growing in the back of her mind.


	2. Chapter 2

Life without Jake doles itself out in drips and drabs. Abby stays in the attic, huddled under the covers longing for another bed and the man who used to share it with her.

Clarke and Raven try to tempt her outside, and when guilt overwhelms exhaustion she gives in, accepts Clarke's gifts of flowers and interesting looking pebbles and stories from school, takes the drinks Raven pours her and nods in the right places when she tells her the pain fades with time.

The only person she can be honest with is Callie, and she pours all her rage and disappointment and the aching emptiness in her heart into the letters.

 

* * *

 

_Dear Callie,_

_It's been three months, and I think I've forgotten what it feels like to be happy. Nothing smells like him. I had a shirt, but it's faded now. I think I'm fading, too, and maybe I'll fade away entirely. I don't want to turn into mom, but I don't know how to stop._

_There's a hole inside me where he used to fit, and I can't seem to fill it. Not with Clarke, not with Raven, not with a million and ten things I've tried._

_I don't know who I am anymore. I miss him so much it feels like I've been taken apart and put back together with pieces missing._

_I wish you were here, Cal. I wish—_

"What are you reading?" Diana makes a grab for the letter and Callie rolls to the side, keeping it from her grasp. Abby's pain doesn't need an audience, and Diana has already made it clear the only parts of Callie's life she wants to talk about are the ones that center around Miami, and Diana herself.

"A letter. It's from my sister. Just some news from home." Inspiration strikes and she adds brightly, "About our aunt, and a couple stories about her daughter. She just turned ten, and..."

"Mmm. How nice." Predictably, Diana waves her off. "You know what else would be nice?"

Callie dodges her attempt to tug her back down to the bed, standing and grabbing her robe off the chair near the bed. "I can think of a lot of things, but first... a little business to take care of." Dropping the letter like it isn't the only thing consuming her, she nods towards the bathroom. "Give me five minutes, then I think I'm going to have to blow your mind."

Snagging the half-empty bottle of vodka off the table on the way, Callie takes a long swig, wincing a little at the burn as she closes the bathroom door.

The belladonna Raven gave her when she left Arkadia is stashed in a little vial in her makeup bag, masquerading as just another tool in her array. Measuring a careful pinch and dropping it down the bottle's neck, Callie glances at the door and adds another pinch, swirling the liquid around and around the bottle until it's as clear and undisturbed as it was when she came in.

Diana can handle a little time spent alone. Abby needs her.

 

* * *

 

When Abby wakes and Callie is in bed next to her, she can't tell if it's a dream. Then Callie leans in and kisses her forehead and the tears start to gather in her eyes, unbidden.

"You're here."

Bringing her hands up to cup Abby's face sadly and thumb away the stray tear making its way down her cheek, Callie smiles. "You needed me."

And so she came. That open the floodgates, all the emotions she's been numb to for months escaping in a roaring wave, obliterating all her defenses and good intentions. "Callie." It's a low moan, and Callie gathers her up in her arms like she's no older than Clarke. "It hurts so much."

Callie doesn't bother with helpful advice or platitudes, just rocks her while she cries herself out.

Finally, when there aren't any tears left in her and the horrible, throbbing numbness has retreated, Abby sighs wetly, bringing a hand up to swipe childishly at her face and alleviate some of the stinging in her eyes. "I don't know what to do without him, Cal."

"You keep living." Their mother hovers between them, unmentioned and mostly forgiven, but a specter of the two paths Abby can walk now.

They turn to lighter topics; for Callie the places she's been and people she's seen since leaving Arkadia, for Abby it's tales from the Polis clinic and Clarke's many adventures and what she wants to do now that she's back and slowly, she can feel sensation returning to pieces of her that shut down when they told her what happened to Jake. It's safe to return to herself, huddled under the covers with her sister.

"A soap shop." Callie's eyes widen and Abby rolls her own, knocking their knees together.

"I wouldn't be selling _just_ soap, you know."

"Yeah, but Ab. Opening a store? That seems a little..."

"Like I'm not practicing medicine? I know." Abby sighs, rolling her head against the pillow in what passes for shaking her head while firmly remaining supine. "But I like making things, and they weren't exactly leaping at the chance to hire me at Arkadia General, not with our last name. And this way I can be around more, to help Clarke..."

"Well, they're missing out." Affectionately, Callie taps the tip of her nose with one finger and Abby crosses her eyes to follow it, floating gently and suspended in the safety of having her other half back at her side. "Clarke couldn't ask for a better mom, and you're going to have the best goddamn soap shop this rinky little town ever saw."

"I'd be the first one, Cal. It's not a lot of competition."

" _Exactly_."

Growling in mock indignation Abby retaliates, sheets tangling around them as she digs her fingers into each ticklish spot within reach, Callie's laughter spinning into the web of happiness around them and setting it alight.

They subside into quiet, breathing in and out in unison and drifting, until Callie sighs and butts their foreheads together gently.

"Time to rejoin the world, big sister. Jake's gone." Abby can't stifle a little moan of loss at that simple, unavoidable truth, and Callie shushes her like Abby had done for her after their mother retreated into heartbreak and left the comforting down to them. "I know, but you're not. And Clarke's not, so you're going to get up and burn those pjs, put on some normal clothes and be the mom that little girl needs again. She deserves that."

The thought of abandoning Clarke like they'd been abandoned is unthinkable, and leave it to Callie to know that. "I thought I was supposed to be the one telling you what to do with your life."

"Oh, I'm sure you'll get around to it soon." Her smile is sly, and she reaches out to tussle Abby's hair. "But while it's still my turn: Ab, take a shower. Use some of your soap, or no one will want to buy anything from you."

Her shriek is loud and joyous when Abby extends a leg and uses it to shove her out of bed and onto the floor.

 

* * *

 

Callie is gone in the morning, a dent in the other pillow and her lingering scent the only proof she was there at all, and not just a dream.

Maybe not the only proof, Abby muses as she showers and brushes her teeth and looks at herself in the mirror. The shadows under her eyes aren't _gone_ , but she can see the woman she was before Jake died looking back at her behind the sadness.

It gets easier with each day to breathe, to take an interest in life again. Clarke needs lunches packed and her homework checked (Raven's a godsend, but her methods of teaching can be questionable; there's a charred wreck of a stump along the front walk that bears that out) and Abby starts cooking again, then pulling her weight in the garden. Soon the cabinets are overflowing with experiments, culminating in Raven demanding that Abby either downsize or find somewhere else to put _all that goddamn lotion_.

After that it only makes sense to make good on her word and purchase a storefront, and find employees who aren't afraid of the town's prodigal daughter returned. She can only find one on her own: Jackson. She'd been his tutor in high school, when he was a round-cheeked boy and not a wiry man who towers nearly a foot over her.

With Jackson comes Harper, a high school student who assures her it's "totally cool, working for a w... Jackson's friend!". Harper brings Monroe, who doesn't say much at all but works hard and runs off the inevitable children with rocks to throw at the town witch's brand new, far too expensive store windows.

They settle into an easy routine, and customers trickle in bit by bit. First it's the tourists here for the leaves and bed and breakfasts, then one by one the locals shuffle through the doors to gawk and leave with a bar of soap or a bottle of shampoo.

She should have known it wouldn't be that easy.

"Witch!" The high voice is muted, but a childhood spent having it hurled at her tuned Abby's ears to the sound. "Witch, witch." The familiar chant rings in her ears and Abby yanks the door open to the sound of Clarke retaliating like she always wanted to.

"I _am_ a witch! And I curse you—"

" _Clarke_ , don't."

Ignoring her entirely, Clarke thrusts out her hand with one finger pointed at the group's ringleader. "With _chicken pox_."

All the color drains from her intended target's face. Abby forces Clarke's arm down, but the damage is done. The group flees, casting glances behind them like they expect Clarke to grow wings and follow them.

Turning to Clarke, Abby shakes her head in frustration and struggles to keep her voice level. "I told you, we don't _curse_ people, Clarke, not even when they try to hurt us. I raised you better than that."

"Just because you let them tell you being a witch is bad doesn't mean _I_ have to." The stubborn set to Clarke's face is like looking in a mirror, and Abby can't help a gusty sigh. "I'm walking home _alone_." She takes off at a run, soles of her shoes slapping the pavement in angry punctuation to her words. "Don't follow me!"

Jackson and Monroe busy themselves with stock when she reenters, but Harper doesn't bother. "You okay, Miz G?" Trying to get her to use Abby hadn't stuck, yet, but Abby has hope. "Those kids are just bigots. Clarke'll be fine."

 _Bigots_ , God love her. Mustering up a smile, Abby nods. "Thank you, Harper. I appreciate that." The rest of the afternoon passes quietly, but Abby can feel dread settle like a stone in her belly.

 

* * *

 

Before the phone rings a third time, Abby knows it's trouble. She beats Clarke to the kitchen, ignoring her still-obvious pique over her scolding and the exasperated little sigh she gives at her self-appointed phone monitor duties being disrupted.

"Callie? Cal, what's wrong."

"Abby..." Callie's voice is hushed, like she's trying to hide and at the same time convince them both she's calm. "Abby, I need you to come get me."

"Where are you?"

"Somewhere near the Delaware border. I took her car... I've been driving all day, Ab, she just _snapped_."

"Who snapped?"

By now Raven is in the hallway, brows knit together in concern.

"Diana. I said something about her little group of sycophants and she _lost_ it, Ab."

"Are you all right?"

"Fine. I put some belladonna in her drink, then I left, but Abby... she's going to follow me. I just know it." Even across the phone line, Abby can see her pleading expression, the same one she'd worn each time she'd begged Abby for help when they were young.

"I'll book a ticket. Text me the address, and I'll be there as soon as I can. Stay inside, wait for me."

Hanging up the phone, Abby turns to Raven and answers her unasked question. "She's okay, but I need to go get her. Can you watch Clarke?"

"Of course." Clarke's eyes are wide and concerned, all her anger from the afternoon forgotten and Raven gives her a gentle noogie then wraps an arm around her shoulders. "What do you say, Clarke? You and me and the equinox? We'll do a little dancing, a little casting..." Leading her away, Raven mouths 'go, I got this' at Abby over her shoulder. "It'll be fun, and when we get back your aunt Callie will be home again."

 

* * *

 

The motel Callie picked looks like something out of a horror movie, and Abby shivers as she tries to walk casually across the parking lot, breaking into a run once she's out of the lobby's view.

"Cal? Callie, it's me. Open up."

The Callie who opens the door is one Abby's never seen. Her hair is unbrushed, eyes wild and panicked. There's a red mark above one cheekbone, and Abby's field of vision narrows to that one spot.

"Did she _hit_ you?"

Callie shakes her head, emphatic. "No." Abby gives her a disbelieving look and she insists, " _No_ , Ab." Her mouth twists. "She threw one of those stupid highball glasses she likes at the wall, and a piece of glass got me."

"What _happened_ —no, tell me later." Looking around the room, Abby presses her lips together and counts to three, slowly. "Grab your stuff, we can take your car and drive the rest of the way."

The hug Callie gives her is bone crushing, her relief palpable. "Thank you, Ab. _Thank you_." She whispers the words into her hair, fingers trembling with the strength of the grip she has on Abby's upper arms.

"We'll never leave each other, remember?" Callie's emotions only feeds her own, but Abby just holds her back and concentrates on the concrete steps towards home and safety. "Okay, let's get moving."

Abby tries not to twitch at the sound of their heels on concrete, but each footstep sounds like one an unseen watcher has taken towards them. Callie leads her right for the expensive looking silver BMW in the corner.

"Wasn't she supposed to be some environmental activist?" It's a poor attempt at levity but Callie laughs anyway, a little shaky and no less reassuring to hear for it.

"It's a hybrid."

The woman's voice comes from behind them, and Abby whips around, Callie a half-second behind her.

"Diana, I..."

"Shhh, don't." Raising a perfectly manicured hand, the blonde woman— _Diana_ —gestures almost lazily with a gun that looks just as silver and expensive as the car. "You must be Abby. I've heard so much about you."

"You _bitch_ —"

"Oh, she's fiery! Callie, you told me she was boring." Diana speaks neatly over her, taking a step towards them. "I'm looking forward to finding out what else you left out. Abby? You'll drive, won't you."

She tosses her keys and Abby catches them one-handed, rage forming a solid ball in her throat, causing her voice to come out strangled and harsh. "Where are we going?"

"I'll let you know when I decide." The pleasant mask drops, and she swings the gun to point it at Callie, right between the eyes. "Get in the car, you two. _Now_."

 

* * *

 

The drive is torture. Diana demands music, then alternates between singing along in a low, pleasant contralto Abby wishes sounded less soothing and berating Callie for leaving her between sips of vodka.

"Did you think I couldn't find you, sweetheart?" She strokes the side of Callie's face, clucking sadly at the cut on her cheek. "I told you, we're forever. I don't let the things I want go."

"Are you _listening_ to yourself?" Abby bursts out from the front seat, taking her eyes off the road for a moment to glare fiercely at the backseat. "You sound like a cartoon villain. She _left_ you. Get over it and get some therapy, or find someone else to make miserable."

"You know, I don't think your sister likes me very much."

"Oh, I—"

" _Ab_." Callie interrupts, meeting her eyes in the rearview mirror. "Diana's right, I should have known better."

 _The belladonna_.

Her voice is louder in Abby's head than it is out loud. _Abby, it's in my purse._

Breaking eye contact, Abby looks down and spots the purse, tugging it closer by the strap and searching for the vial without moving enough to give Diana a reason to ask what she's doing. "Fine. If you want me to like you more, give me the bottle. For some reason, being taken hostage at gunpoint hasn't been great for my mood."

"'Taken hostage'," Diana tosses her head back and laughs. "You make me sound like a bank robber. I like it." She passes the bottle up to Abby, making sure their fingers brush as she hands it over. "Here, maybe this will help."

The clear liquid burns like fire going down, and Abby rests it in her lap once she's done, thumbing open the belladonna and pouring it in as well as she can without looking while sending up a silent prayer enough makes it in to knock Diana out in minutes and not an hour.

All it takes is a little concentration and a nudge of power to start a whirpool in the bottle, mixing the contents before handing it back to Diana. "There."

"Thank you, Abby." As the radio starts another cheerful segue into the next golden oldie, Diana drinks deep and Abby meets Callie's eyes in the mirror. _Soon_.

 

* * *

 

Diana's weight is heavy on her, growing heavier by the moment. It has to be the belladonna. Callie closes her eyes and prays, trying to hold off the urge to scream. It's the belladonna, and this is almost over.

"Can't get used to losing you..." Diana croons the words in her ear, breath hot and alcohol-scented. "No matter what I try to do." There's an odd drag to her tone, like she can't quite make her tongue form the words in full. "Gonna spend my whole life through, loving you."

She lapses into silence, her whole weight collapsed on Callie now, and as the song ends Abby shuts the radio off, plunging the car into silence.

"Cal?" Abby's trying to keep her voice casual but the nerves show through, and Callie looks down sharply to make sure Diana hasn't noticed.

She hasn't. "Abby, you did it, she's out."

The car fishtails to a stop and Diana doesn't stir, nothing more than deadweight on Callie's lap. She shoves her away and scrambles backwards, out the door and into Abby's waiting arms. "Oh, god. Ab, I'm so sorry. I didn't know she was like that, I would _never_ —"

"I know. You're okay now, Callie. She can't hurt you anymore." For almost as long as she can remember, Abby is the one she's turned to for protection and comfort. She seems like an avenging angel now, hair streaming out behind her as she glares at the car. "And once the cops get their hands on her, she won't be able to hurt anyone."

"You're right." Taking in a few deep, centering breaths, Callie inhales the clean scent of mint and thyme that says Abby, purging Diana's expensive perfume from her nostrils. "You're right. But can we just... can we go home, first? We can put her in the trunk or something, in case she wakes up."

The way Abby's face tightens says there's almost nothing she would rather do than drive from Delaware to Massachusetts with a woman she drugged in her trunk, but after a moment she nods. "Okay. Yeah, we can go home and hand her over to them there. Help me move her?"

When they open the car door on Diana's side, her arm flops out the side bonelessly. "I'll take her head, you take... Abby?" Beside her, Abby is still as the grave. "Abby, what is it?"

Kneeling, Abby puts two fingers on the side Diana's neck, then looks up at her blankly. "She's dead."

 

* * *

 

The skin beneath her fingers is already cooling, and Abby scrambles backwards, landing on her ass with a firm thump.

"I killed her." Hearing the words makes them real, and one hand flies up to cover her mouth. "Oh my god, Cal, I _killed her_."

"You didn't mean to."

"I don't think the police are going to consider that a good excuse! Cal, I can't go to prison. I can't. I have a daughter, I have a store, I have..."

"You're not going to prison." Callie's face is hard, and she steps around Abby to lift Diana's arm and put it back on the seat, closing the door with a loud cracking sound that rattles the windows. "You're going to get back in the car, and we're going to drive home."

"And do what? Callie, I—"

" _Get in the car_."

She doesn't say anything else for the rest of the trip, not until they're moving up the front walkway. "Help me get her inside."

Abby's never been happier they don't have neighbors. Lugging Diana up the steps and through the door into the kitchen takes almost all the energy she has left, and once they're done she slumps back against the wall, staring at the body on their table. "What do we do now?" All the panic has bled away, leaving her numb. "Call the cops?"

"We bring her back."

Heart jolting, Abby pushes away from the wall. "No. No, Callie, that's not the kind of magic we do."

"If you don't want to end up in an orange jumpsuit, we _do_. I know you can do it."

"It's not a question of not being able to do it. I looked up the spells after mom, and... this is dark, Callie, and whatever we bring back won't be who she was."

"I don't care! As long as she's alive, we can call the police and then she's their problem. Please, Abby, please. For me." Callie puts a hand on her arm, waiting until she's looking at her to deliver the killing blow. "For _Clarke_."

Clarke. Clarke, who would be the latest Griffin to have to navigate the world without her mother if she doesn't give in.

"Fine. But you have to do everything I say, and we're calling them _right_ after."

Callie nods, eyes lit from behind with a manic light. "It'll be fine, Abby, you'll see. This will fix it."

For a spell that could crack the very fabric of their lives, it's shockingly easy to assemble. A few herbs, a few words, a little blood, and then nothing to do but wait.

"...did it work?" Callie's voice is loud in the hush that's overtaken the house, and Abby jumps at the sound. "Why isn't she moving? Abby, why isn't she—"

The body on the table lurches once, bowing up and away from the wood and then collapsing again, breathing wheezy but absolutely real. In spite of her terror, pride and fascination take root. She did that. She brought a woman back from the dead, fixed this mess. Clarke will be fine. They all will.

"Okay, _now_ we call the police." Turning her back on the table, Abby only takes two steps towards the old cordless on the wall when there's a slow scraping sound and then Callie makes a loud, shocked sound that cuts off halfway through.

Whipping around, Abby's breath catches on a gasp. Diana's well-manicured hand is wrapped around Callie's throat, squeezing as Callie's face slowly gains some of the same blue that still clings to her own.

There's no thought involved after that, just pure animal fury. Once it ebbs away Abby stares at the body on the floor; at the heavy skillet in her hand, and Callie on the floor next to it, terrified but alive.

"Ab..."

" _Don't_." She swallows, eyes fixed on Diana's body. "Help me get her outside. We need to bury her."

They work in silence, Abby ignoring each pleading glance Callie shoots her. If she thinks too hard about what they're doing, she might not be able to see it through to the end. Once the last clod of dirt is back in place, Abby stares at the freshly turned earth and tries not to cry.

"Raven can't know. No one can." Callie bobs her head, face still pale and drawn, and some of the ice encasing Abby cracks. Wrapping an arm around her waist, Abby leads her back into the house. "Come on, it's cold."


	3. Chapter 3

Clarke and Raven return the next morning, Clarke tumbling through the front door with her mouth already moving. "Mom! Mom, we got naked, then we made the ocean..." Her voice trails off as she catches sight of Callie, hanging back by the kitchen, unsure of her welcome with the niece she's only seen periodically for most of her life. "Aunt Callie!"

Callie's face lights up at her obvious glee, crouching down and opening her arms, rocking back on her heels and nearly falling when the strength of the running start behind Clarke's hug strikes her. "God, you're so big! When did you grow up? I thought I told you to make sure you didn't get any taller than your mom, you know how much she hates that."

Abby snorts. "At least I'll always have you, Raven."

"I'm an inch taller than you, shorty," Raven grouses, but her smile is as bright as Clarke's. "Well, Callie, are you going to get over here and let me take a look at you?"

For a split second, Abby's terrified Callie will be the one to break and tell Raven everything. Then the moment passes and Callie's smile wobbles back into place over Raven's shoulder and she stands, stepping into Raven's hug.

Despite the circumstances, Abby feels a rush of satisfaction. This is how it's meant to be: all of them, together.

"I trust this won't happen again?" Raven ghosts her fingers over the cut on Callie's face, clucking in disapproval. "Because if it's a continuing problem, I might be forced to turn its source into a toad." She makes a face at Clarke, leering like a gargoyle, but she means it.

"No, it's fine." Abby answers for Callie when she doesn't pipe up. "Trust me, we won't be seeing the source again."

"Good." Arm still around Callie's shoulders, Raven heads for the kitchen. "Now, I think I hear some junk food calling my name. Clarke, you hungry for something with zero nutritional value?"

Their chatter continues into the next room, but a chill passes down Abby's spine and she glances out at the trellis before following after.

 

* * *

 

The sound of the blender is unmistakeable, even from the attic, even over the low strains of the music Raven likes to put on. She'd made them virgins until eighteen, but eighteen was a long time ago and Callie can almost taste the tequila on her tongue.

Abby's form is still under the covers when she crawls into bed beside her, lying down until their noses nearly touch. "Abby..." She twitches but stays firmly asleep and Callie lifts a hand, stroking a hand down the side of her face. "Ab, wake up."

"Mmm. Cal, _what_..." Stilling, Abby wakes up enough to process the sounds from downstairs. "Midnight margaritas!"

Callie sings the words along with her, and they nearly trip over each other in their haste to be the first to claim a glass.

There are two waiting on the counter, and Abby drains half of hers in one go.

"Look at _you_ , Abby," Raven crows from her place in front of the blender. "I knew I taught you well."

Tossing back the rest, Abby coughs and looks down at the glass, trying to ascertain what she used to make it, absent the usual warm bite of tequila. "Vodka?"

Shrugging, Raven takes a slightly smaller slug from her own glass. "I need to do a tequila run, and wasting expensive liquor is a cardinal sin."

"I'll drink to that." Callie holds her glass out to Raven, cheeks already flushed. "Hit me, bartender."

 _Estoy clavado, estoy herido_ , Abby mouths the words along with the song, long memorized by now even if her Spanish is only good enough to pick out every third or fourth word. _Estoy ahogado en un bar_.

"Me too." Raven refills them both, cold slush slopping over the sides with each pour. "Bottoms up."

They work their way through everything in the blender and have started in on the bottle itself before Abby can think of a reason to stop, and by then reason has given up the ghost and given itself over to the kind of drunk she hasn't been since college.

"I never..." Raven gives Callie a sly, sideways glance. "I never told my aunt the sound she heard was a cat when it was my boyfriend falling off the bed."

"You _knew_?" Callie's voice cracks, amusement edging into mania. "Oh fuck you, I felt so bad for lying."

"I don't know why you did. It's not like Raven can judge anybody for having an active nightlife." Gesturing impatiently at the bottle, Abby cackles. "Right, Raven?"

"Amen to that." Raven hands it across the table, snickering. "Somebody had to pick up your slack. Until you found Jake, I thought you were going to live up to that stupid spell you cast and stay frigid and alone forever."

"I can't believe you just said that!" She should be offended. She _wants_ to be, but it's hard to think past the fog and the feeling slips away. "I..." She hiccups, interrupting the thought. "I was _cautious_."

"Oh, please, sis. You were _boring_." Callie doesn't bother asking for the bottle, just grabs it from her hands.

"Stiff." Raven adds taking the bottle back and tipping her chair back on its back legs, laughing hysterically when she nearly falls.

"Better stiff than a slut." Abby claps a hand over her mouth as the word escapes, nervous giggles escaping anyway.

"Prude!"

"Bitch!"

"Witch!" Raven yells the word, pitching sideways and cackling after, nursing the bottle from her position slumped halfway between the chair and the table. Abby laughs, too, but the longer the bottle is out of her hands the less funny it seems.

"Can't get used to losing you... no matter what I try to do." Raven's singing to herself now, half into her hands, and Callie meets her eyes across the table, laughter gone.

All at once sober, Abby yanks the bottle from Raven's hands. "Where did you get this?"

" _Hey_!"

"Raven, _where did you get this_."

Blinking, Raven considers the question. "Someone left it on the porch."

Swallowing a scream, Abby crosses to the back door and hurls the bottle outside, glass shattering as it strikes the ground. When she turns back around Raven is standing, sober as a priest and all amusement wiped clean.

"Is one of you going to explain this to me, or do I need to ask what the hell just happened?"

Trading glances with Callie, Abby swallows hard and then forces herself to shrug and look Raven in the eye while she lies. "I have no idea."

"Mmm. Callie? What about you?"

"I don't know, either."

"Right." Brace rattling with each angry step, Raven moves past them both and heads for the stairs. "Well, whatever it is? I'm going to bed. Clean things up in here, girls. Before you see me again."

When they wake up in the morning, she's gone.

 

* * *

 

It only takes an hour for the other shoe to drop. Wherever Raven is, it's nowhere Abby can find in her few attempts at a location spell. Clarke provides a glimmer of hope when she says Raven left them a message, and quashes it when she relates the message.

 _Clean it up yourselves. I'll be back when you do_.

When they press Clarke for details she just shrugs and asks what Aunt Raven wants them to clean up, and can she help? Abby stops asking after that, and has to banish Callie to town on errands that don't exist to keep her away from Clarke's insatiable curiosity until the bus arrives.

Once she's gone, Clarke lingers by the window, staring outside.

"Honey, you need to get going. If you're not ready for the bus, I'll have to be late to work so I can drive you." When she doesn't budge, Abby raises her voice just a little. "Clarke, honey, now."

"Mom, who is she?"

"...who is... Clarke, what are you talking about?"

"The woman in the flowers." She raises an arm to point towards the back garden.

Abby feels her stomach sink, terror like ashes at the back of her tongue. Crossing to the window and following Clarke's gaze, she spots the shocking burst of red; dahlias in full bloom, growing around and up the trellis as best they can.

"I don't see anyone, honey."

"Mom, she's right there!" Clarke is indignant, face scrunched in frustration, but then she pales. "Mom, she's staring at us."

Abby's throat clicks on a dry swallow. "Get ready for school."

"But mom—"

"Do it _now_ , Clarke. And stay _away_ from those flowers, do you hear me?"

Maybe it's her imagination, but the shears she takes to the bushes takes half a second too long to cut through each one, like the plants are fighting her.

"I didn't know they had zinnias that bloomed this early."

Whirling around, Abby holds the shears out like a weapon.

"Whoa, hey. Easy there." The man holds his arms up in mock-surrender, eyes hidden behind mirrored glasses. "Want to put those down, now?"

"Dahlias."

"...what?"

Lowering the shears and then setting them on the ground, Abby crosses her arms over her chest. "They're dahlias, not zinnias."

His mouth curves up, and when he takes off the sunglasses his eyes are laughing too. "Sorry about that. My mother was the gardener in the family, I never had the knack. Are you Abigail Griffin?"

She shifts, uneasy. "Abby."

"Abby." He says the word like he's testing the way it feels in his mouth, then nods in satisfaction. "All right, Abby. My name's Marcus Kane—you can just call me Marcus. I'm with the US Marshal Service. If you don't mind, I was hoping I could come inside? Ask a couple questions. It'll only take a minute or two."

"Uh..." Every cell in her body screams out to turn him away, that he's _danger_. "Of course." He's also someone who could ruin everything, if she gives him a reason to think they're hiding anything. "Come on in."

"Thank you, Abby."

Leading him up the steps and through the side door feels like crossing an invisible line and stepping into an entirely new world, one where she doesn't know the landmarks or laws.

"So, what was it you wanted to ask? Did something happen to one of the neighbors."

Taking a seat at the table, Marcus cocks his head to one side. "Didn't see many neighbors as I drove in."

"Well, you know." Abby waves a hand towards the direction of their nearest neighbor, two miles down the highway. "It's all relative."

"Mm-hmm." Narrowing her eyes, Abby tries to decide if he's mocking her but Marcus only bobs his head. "Tell you the truth, I was looking for your sister."

"Really? Why?" The brittle note to her curiosity is obvious but impossible to avoid, and she can see Marcus take it in and file it away.

"She was mixed up with a woman I'm looking for. Diana Sydney?" He slides Diana's picture across the table and Abby desperately tries to weigh how many lies she can get away with telling.

"They were dating."

He nods, slight smile curling around the edges of his lips. "I know. What I don't know is where Ms. Sydney is right now. I was hoping Callie might be able to help us with that."

"She doesn't know where she is." The defense bursts out and Abby wishes she could call it back. Attempting damage control, she adds, "She left Diana. She called me to come help her get out, and we haven't seen her since."

"All the same, she might know about a vacation home, a hotel she likes... any detail's a good one." His eyes are kind. He means it; they don't know anything yet, and relief swamps her.

"Of course. She went to the store, she'll be back in a few minutes... you know what? Let me text her."

"Mom, will the school get mad if I bring someone with me?"

When she turns to escape to the foyer where she can grab her purse and make sure Callie can get herself together, Clarke is standing in the doorway. A younger girl stands close by her side, hand firmly clasped in Clarke's own larger one. An older boy stands behind them both, looking between them with a mix of annoyance and warmth.

"She's bored, and I hate riding the bus alone. Please, mom?"

Swinging back to Marcus, Abby rises an eyebrow and watches him go ruddy, one hand coming up to cover his face with incredibly familiar parental exhaustion. "You brought children to chase a criminal?"

From behind them, a different voice pipes up. " _A_ child."

"...I'm sorry?"

The boy's jaw sets mulishly, and he crosses his arms over his chest. " _I'm_ not a child, just Octavia. Children means more than one."

Blinking, Abby looks at him with new eyes. "All right, I take it back." Turning back to Marcus, she shrugs. "You brought a child and an adolescent," she gives Bellamy a quick, questioning glance, and waits until he nods with magnanimous approval before continuing, "To investigate a murder?"

"Yes." He grits the answer out between gritted teeth, shooting his older charge a quelling look. "It was unavoidable."

"Our mom's dead, and I made the babysitter leave." Clarke's new playmate pipes up now, frank as Clarke at her most adult. "So Marcus had to take us."

That makes the reasoning a little less convoluted; child or not, the boy is nowhere near old enough to be left alone with a child as young as his sister for any considerable length of time.

"And you are..."

"Octavia." She jerks her head backwards, indicating the boy. "And he's my brother, Bellamy."

Bellamy raises a hand in a half-wave, sneaking a glance at Kane from the corner of his eye. "I tried to make her stay in the car."

"I imagine you did." She can't help a huff of laughter at the wry return, and some of the fear breaks. They hid what they'd done from _Raven_ ; not entirely and not well, but a marshal is nothing compared to her.

"How about this, honey. You can stay home from school today and play with Octavia while we wait for your aunt to get back, if—" Clarke cheers and Abby shoots her a look. " _If_ you spend three hours in the garden before bed today. Working in the garden, Clarke. Not just sitting." After a beat, she tacks on, "And I mean working on the garden itself, not something else."

Marcus huffs out a laugh. "Had a problem or two with not making sure you laid it all out in the past, huh?"

"You have no idea." Turning back to Clarke, Abby holds out a hand to shake. "What do you say, do we have a deal?"

Dragging Octavia behind, Clarke bounces over to shake her hand then just as quickly bounces away, headed out for the porch with Bellamy hot on the girl's heels. "Come on, Octavia, I want you to meet the cats. Bellamy, you can come too. You have to be quiet, and let them come to you, or they won't..." Clarke's voice floats back towards them until she's out of range, imperious as ever.

Abby's heart swells, and the eyeroll she gives Marcus is nothing but proud. "Kids."

"Strong-willed, isn't she?"

Approval warms his voice and Abby laughs, repeating herself. "You have _no_ idea."

Glancing at the door the kids exited through, Marcus shakes his head. "Oh, I think I might."

"They're both articulate kids. You're their..." She trails off delicately, giving him room to jump in and he groans.

"God, here we go." When she draws back, he shakes his head. "No, it's just there's no simple way to explain... their mother was one of my mother's foster children for a period of time when we were both young. After she died, I felt a certain responsibility, and..."

This time it's his turn to trail off, and Abby's turn to jump in and rescue him. "It's hard, isn't it? Trying to help them deal with grief when they barely understand how loss works, yet." He shoots her a questioning look, and she inhales. "My husband died a little under a year ago. Clarke's bouncing back, but it was hard on both of us."

His face shuffles through a range of emotions—surprise, embarrassment, guilt—before landing on weary sympathy. "It seems like you did a good job helping her through it."

"I could say the same thing to you." Their eyes meet and it seems like he's about to reveal something else, something important, and the room itself pulses with anticipation.

The sound of Callie's return breaks the moment. "Abby? Hey, Ab, there's a car in the driveway. It's got..." Her voice falters and flattens as she takes in Marcus, seated at the table with a notepad in hand. "Government plates. Who's this?"

"Marcus Kane, ma'am."

"He's with the marshals, Cal." Marcus shoots her a look of concern and she smiles tightly. "Sorry, I'll just..."

"No, stay. This should be quick. Ms. Griffin, do you know where Diana Sydney might go if she were on the run? Your sister said the relationship ended, and that you hadn't seen her, but anything you can tell me would be helpful. You never know what could be important."

"You know about the house in Miami?" He nods, and Callie shrugs. "Then you know everything I do. Diana never talked about any hideaways with me." She snaps her fingers like she's just remembered something, but Abby knows the face she makes when she embellishes a story. "She did say she liked the Keys, though. She might have a place there."

Humming thoughtfully, Marcus taps one finger against the table. "That's it?"

"That's it."

"All right, then." Pushing back, he stands and stretches a little. "Well, then I guess that's all for now. I'll be in touch if I think of anything else."

"We'll walk you out." Callie's calm, but Abby can hear her heartbeat thundering in her ears. He knows Callie's lying. She doesn't know how she can tell but she _can_ , reading his expression as easily as Callie's.

At the bottom of the steps, he stops and squints and the BMW. "Whose car is this?"

"Mine." Callie laughs, a little nervous. "Why?"

"Because this car? Your car? It belongs to Diana Sydney, and it went missing around the same time she went to ground." His eyes narrow, taking in the way Callie's smile drops away and Abby's face goes pale. "Yeah, I thought that might be a little concerning. I'll send somebody by for this later all right. And Ms. Griffin?"

Callie's voice is strained when she answers. "Yes, Marshal Kane?"

"Do yourself a favor? Don't leave town. It wouldn't look good for you, not right now." He strides away and Callie turns wide, panicked eyes in Abby's direction and taking off at a run back inside.

 

* * *

 

As best he can tell, Arkadia's like a small town from a movie. Each storefront is plastered with gaudy orange and black crepe, each populated by dancing skeletons and cackling witches and vampires with wide, fanged smiles.

People are friendly enough and chatty by turns, and to a one they all seem to have the same opinion on the Griffins and Raven Reyes.

The only exceptions seem to be the people who work in Abby's store, where the lone undecorated panes of glass stand in open defiance of the holiday.

"Abby doesn't like Halloween much. I think it's because of the stigma surrounding..."

" _Harper_." The tall young man arranging a window display that doesn't contain a single hint of orange hisses at the cashier, glaring with disapproval. "I don't think Abby wants us to share her personal opinions with people we don't know."

"Her opinion on Halloween, Jackson?" That's from the pokerfaced redhead in the corner, and when he looks over at her she hurries to drop her smirk and present him with a blank, slightly sullen face again.

"I just don't think she'd like it," Jackson repeats stubbornly, but he doesn't say anything else.

She treats her employees well, if they're all this protective of her. That fits with what he's seen of Abby Griffin so far, and it suits the woman who wrote the letter in his breast pocket down to the ground. Turning back to Harper, Marcus nods encouragingly. "You were saying?"

Brightening under the attention, she nods back. "The stigma against people who are... different, you know?" She gives him a significant look, clearly expecting him to understand exactly what stigma could possibly keep someone from wanting to decorate for Halloween. "People in this town just don't know Abby. If they knew her, they'd love her."

Marcus frowns. "I thought she grew up here?"

"She did." Jackson has stopped working and instead has moved to a new activity; attempting to drill a hole through the back of Marcus' head with the force of his glare, if he's not mistaken. He's not turning to look out of principle—and, if he's honest, because the idea that he's here to try and hurt Abby needles him and ignoring the attempts to warn him off are at least petty revenge—but he can feel the hair on the back of his neck prickle under its weight. "But she's a _very private person_ , and the people who love Abby should respect that."

"What should the people who love me respect?"

Monroe is the only one facing the street, and as such the only one who doesn't jump at the sound of Abby's voice. "Jesus, Abby." Glancing up, Marcus stares accusatorially at the bell over the door. "How'd you open it without setting that thing off?"

"Must be broken. What do they need to respect, Jackson?"

Shamefaced, he darts his eyes to the side, searching for an answer that doesn't implicate Harper or set Abby off. "Your privacy?"

"I was just asking these three a couple questions." Marcus breaks in smoothly, sparing Jackson the need to elaborate. "Jackson here seemed to object to it."

Abby beams, patting Jackson on the cheek affectionately. "I knew always I liked you. Come on, Marcus."

He blinks. "What?"

"Well, I'm not letting you interrogate my staff, and I'm not letting them eavesdrop on me. So we're going for a walk."

The bell jingles merrily as the door closes behind them, and Marcus shakes his head.

"People in this town have some interesting things to say about you, you know."

Abby snorts. "Oh, I bet they do."

"They tell me you're a..." The idea seems impossible, but it's the consensus and if he can't make himself believe it, he'll at least give the theory enough credence to voice it. "Well, a witch."

She goes silent, and he watches her surreptitiously, appreciating the play of emotion over her mobile face. She'd be a horrible undercover agent; too expressive by half, but it makes her an ideal person to question.

"What else?"

He's so wrapped up in his study of her face that he nearly misses it when she finally answers. "I'm sorry?"

"What else do they say about me?" There's a pinched look around her mouth that says he's stepped onto shaky ground between leaving the shop and now.

"Your employees love you," he demurs, but she shakes her head.

"Oh, please, you're better than that. You started it, Marcus, so now you can finish it."

Miserably, he pinches the bridge of his nose between his fingers. "That you're selling magic alongside the expensive soap. A little devil worship here and there." She scoffs. "Hey, you asked."

"I'm not annoyed with you—well, I _am_ ," she amends, "but not about this. That's just ignorant. There's no devil in witchcraft."

 _No devil in witchcraft_. Marcus stops in the middle of one stride, trying to parse those words. "Are you trying to tell me you think you're really..."

"A witch? Yes." Abby is so matter of fact it's hard to reconcile what she's saying with how reasonable she sounds saying it. "And I don't think, I know."

Shaking his head, Marcus lengthens his stride to catch up with her, back up with her. "You have to know that sounds crazy."

He can tell immediately it was the wrong thing to say, as the skin under her cheekbones draws taut and turns her face into something austere, remote as a statue in a museum. "Well, I'm a Griffin woman." When she smiles, it's more a baring of teeth. "I'm sure they told you _all_ kinds of stories about those crazy women out on the cliff, worshipping the devil and killing their husbands."

His breath hisses out in shock but he doesn't contradict her, and she stops walking.

"I think we're done, here. Unless you have anything else to ask me."

Frustrated, Marcus pushes back at her anger. "Yes, I do, now that you mention it. Do you have any knowledge of Diana's Sydney's whereabouts?"

"For the last time, _no_." She rolls her eyes. "If this is how the marshals solve cases, no wonder she slipped away without you noticing."

"Did your sister have anything to do with Diana's disappearance?" It's a shot in the dark but it's clear it lands as well as her barb had, and he feels the familiar rush of triumph at a puzzle nearly assembled at the same time he wants to apologize and beg her forgiveness. "Abby, look at me. If you tell me the truth, I can help you. Did something happen, when Diana left that mark on her cheek and she called you to come help her?" Abby doesn't respond and he takes a step closer, trying to convince her if she'll just trust him he can help her find a way out of this. "Did your sister kill her?"

"Oh, no, that was me."

Her tone is so casual he gapes, unable to work up a reply. "You..." He clears his throat. "Are you telling me _you_ killed Diana Sydney."

"Oh, yeah." Her smile is pure spite, arsenic worked into coarse sugar. "A couple times."

When she walks away, he doesn't try to stop her.


	4. Chapter 4

She sleeps poorly that night, turning her conversation with Marcus over and over in her mind.

 _Stupid_. It was stupid to say that to him, stupid, but there's no taking it back now. With any luck they'll be able to pass the car off as a desperate woman fleeing her ex and get away with a slap on the wrist, because Diana is dead and unless they give him a reason to, Marcus has no reason to suspect that the evidence of it has been right under his nose since the moment he saw her.

When the doorbell chimes before she's managed to do much but throw a robe on over her nightgown and make vague feints towards the coffemaker, she knows who it is without Clarke's jubilant confirmation as she throws the door open.

" _Octavia_!"

"Hi, Clarke. Is your mom home?" Marcus is the one who answers her, rich with amusement.

"In the kitchen. Octavia, come on. I want to show you my room. It has a window bed."

Three sets of footsteps thud up the stairs while another solitary pair makes its way towards her, and Abby wonders what she did to deserve this.

"Good morning, Marcus."

"Morning." He takes in her robe and unbrushed hair, the slippers on her feet, and a little smile tugs at his mouth. "Rough night?"

"Don't get cute."

"I'll try to avoid it."

"No flirting, either." At least she's not the only one who can't seem to keep who they are to each other straight.

"No promises there."

"You asked me if my sister killed someone yesterday, and now you're in my kitchen. Flirting with me." He nods, a slow smile spreading across his face as he watches her point a finger accusatorially in his direction. "And now you're doing it again!"

"What do you want me to say? You told me you killed someone yesterday, and here I am in your kitchen. Flirting with you. I know I should stop." He glances down at her bare feet, and her whole body tingle with awareness. "But I think you feel the same way I do. There's something... familiar about you, Abby. I can't seem to shake it."

"Am I interrupting something?" Callie's voice is a discordant note in the spell he'd been weaving, like a fist banged down on a keyboard mid-song. "Officer Kane."

"Marshal."

"Whichever." Callie pours herself a cup of coffee, looking at Marcus from over the rim with an expression that says she heard the whole conversation and can't decide which she likes less; being accused of murder or having to listen to the man who accused her flirt with her sister. "Did you have another question for me?"

"It can wait. For now, I was about to offer your sister an apology, and offer to make lunch for everyone to back it up."

Suspicious or not, Callie isn't one to turn away a free meal. "Fine. What are you making?"

"That depends. Do you have bread?" He directs the question at Abby, and she nods. "Cheese, maybe some butter?" She nods again. "Well, then, I'm making my speciality."

Callie scoffs. "Toast? I'm impressed."

"Grilled cheese." He rolls up his sleeves, unruffled. "Now, step back and give a man a little room to work."

 

* * *

 

"This is really good grilled cheese." Callie sounds resentful, but the whole table mumbles in agreement. "What's your secret?"

Finishing off his bite, Marcus shrugs. "I don't have one. Just butter, bread, cheese, put it in a hot pan and take it out when it's done."

Clarke looks thoughtfully at her sandwich, then over at Octavia. "Your dad makes way better sandwiches than my mom."

Marcus looks to her, half-fearful of her reaction and Abby shrugs. "When she's right, she's right. You make way better sandwiches than I do."

Callie's brooding at the head of the table aside, Abby can almost pretend this is a normal day, and Marcus a normal man. It's comfortable, sitting around the table eating food he made for them; domestic, even.

"Hey, what's this?" Bellamy lifts the edge of the placemat under the candle in the middle of the table, pulling out something that glints silver, the light from the fixture above the table catching and holding on the surface of the pendant at the end of the chain like a beacon.

Abby can't tell but Callie obviously can, and she makes a grab for it. "Oh, that's mine. I must have lost it—"

"Bellamy, may I see that?" Between a stranger's grasping desperation and Marcus' steady calm, Bellamy makes the obvious choice. Marcus looks the necklace over carefully, then pushes back his chair with a loud scrape. "Kids, I think it's time to head out. Bellamy, why don't you take Octavia out to the car?"

Bellamy looks between Marcus and Callie then over to Abby, guilt written across his features. "I didn't mean to..."

"Now, Bellamy." He doesn't raise his voice, but it's unmistakably an order and Bellamy nods, hustling Octavia out of her chair over the sound of her protests and out the door with the rest of his sandwich still clutched, uneaten, in his hand.

Once they're gone and Clarke shooed upstairs, Marcus unleashes the tension he's built up waiting for the kids to clear the room so they can speak openly. "What the hell do you two think you're doing?" He dangles the necklace from a closed fist, knuckles white. "This isn't a game."

"I know it isn't—" Callie tries to ease him down, but Marcus shakes her off.

"Do you? Because this isn't your necklace. Just like the car, this belongs to Diana Sydney. I recognize it from the pictures." Pocketing the necklace, Marcus shakes his head. "Ms. Griffin, you're going to want to get a really good lawyer. And fast." His gaze swings to Abby and softens a little. "You too, Abby. Whatever the hell happened, I know enough to know when I'm being lied to. I'll see myself out."

Abby listens to the door click gently shut in his wake, trying to calm her breathing.

"This is nothing, Ab. _Nothing_. So what, I have her necklace? I was scared, I just grabbed my purse and ran, and it was mixed up in my stuff. They don't have anything, Abby, they can't prove we—"

"I."

Callie shakes her head, a quick jerk. "No, _we_. We, Abby."

Shutting her eyes, Abby lets the facts pile up and collapse on top of her, revealing the only thing she can do to make any of this right. "I can't do this anymore, Callie. I have to tell him the truth."

"Abby, no. You can't—"

"I can't keep _lying_ to him! He knows, Callie, and maybe if I tell him everything he can help us."

"He'll put you in prison, Abby." Callie tugs at the sleeve of her robe, frantic in her need to stop her.

"Callie... I killed someone. Maybe that's where I should be." Abby carefully pries her fingers away, dropping her hand and moving towards the stairs when Callie's plaintive voice stops her in her tracks.

"He'll take you away from me."

Turning back, Abby pulls Callie into a hug, breathing in the familiar scent of her hair and strengthening her resolve. "He could never." After one more beat to absorb the moment, if this is one of the last free ones she has, Abby heads for the door. "Keep an eye on Clarke for me."

 

* * *

 

Marcus opens his hotel room door before she knocks on it.

"How did you—"

"I saw you in the window, walking up. Do you want to sit?" He's still angry about earlier, and there's a stiff professional tone to his voice she's never heard before. Still, his hand on her arm is gentle, thumb stroking in little circles she's sure he doesn't know he's making.

"I'd rather stand, if that's all right."

"Are you here to tell me the truth, this time?" She nods, a quick jerk, and he sighs. "Abby, please. Sit down?"

He takes the chair across from hers, setting his phone on the table between them. "I'm going to record our conversation from here on out. Anything you don't want a judge to hear, don't say it. All right, this is the testimony of Abigail Griffin, given on..." he checks the calendar the motel left on the table, "The fifth of October, twenty-fourteen."

The room feels like it's spinning in circles, the image of what comes next floating in the air, close enough to touch the cool metal of the bars. "Marcus..."

He talks over her, pitching his voice like he wants to obscure her interjection. "Do you know where Diana Sydney is?"

Stifling a hysterical laugh, Abby rests her face in her hands. "I think she's in the next world."

"You think she's dead?"

"I think she's haunting the garden."

He groans. "Goddamnit, Abby, I need you to take this seriously. Did your sister kill Diana Sydney?"

"Callie didn't kill anyone."

"Callie didn't kill anyone." He repeats the words softly, voice dull. "Callie didn't, but..." His gaze sharpens. "You did." She can see him using that wonderfully active mind to slide the pieces into the right order, to move from shock to understanding. "Abby... did you?"

The air in the room feels thin and useless, doing nothing but serve to remind her of the way she can't quite draw in enough to think straight and Abby pushes away from the table, starting to pace. "And what if I did? What then? You send me to jail?" He doesn't respond but she can see the truth of it in his eyes. "Why? Would the world so much worse because Diana Sydney isn't in it anymore?"

"That's not how it works, Abby. You don't decide what she deserves any more than I do. How she pays for her crimes is up to the court to decide."

"Yeah, well. I would say she already paid."

"It was self-defense." Exhaling noisily, he corrects himself. " _If_ it was self-defense, if you were protecting your sister, I can help you."

"I did what I had to."

Marcus slams his fist down on the table in frustration, dislodging a well-worn piece of paper. He's too wrapped up to notice it, and he jabs at the phone with one thumb, turning it off.

"If you're not going to be honest with me, I can't help you." She leans to pick up the paper and he exhales noisily. "Fine. Then I advise you to get that lawyer, because next time it won't be somebody like me asking these questions."

"Somebody like you." She echoes him quietly, concentration on the familiar handwriting in her hands and the way the letter looks like it's been read a hundred times over. "This is my letter. You read my letters? Those were personal, Marcus."

"Just the one we found at the house in Miami. It was evidence."

"My feelings about my husband's death were _evidence_? Of what?"

He winces. "I wanted to—"

Invigorated now, Abby takes a step forward, shaking the letter. "You wanted to what? Invade my privacy? Humiliate me?"

"I wanted to _know_ you." The words sound like they've been ripped from his chest, raw-edged and imperfect. "You don't think I don't know it was inappropriate? I just meant to scan it once, to make sure it had nothing to do with the case." Now he's the one pushing into her space, eyes feverish. "But once I started, I couldn't stop. I needed..."

He cuts himself off, breathing hard and somehow without either of them making the choice to move they're pressed together, her breasts snug against his chest as his mouth moves on her own, one hand coming up to clutch desperately at her hair.

"I need you." Marcus grits the words out between kisses. "I need you, Abby."

She should turn him away. Even if he weren't here to try and find a woman she killed, Clarke is at home waiting for her, and Bellamy and Octavia are only one room over. Nothing good can come of ignoring all that. " _Yes_."

Their clothes melt away with a thought and one hairy thigh slides between her own, providing friction where she needs it most. Shame is a forgotten concept as she chases the fire building her her belly, Marcus' mouth alternating between whispering encouragements and kissing her until she can't breathe.

"Please, Abby. I want to see you." Gasping, she shatters against him, head lolling against his chest. " _Abby_." She looks up into eyes lit by desperation, and his cock jolts against her hip. "Can I..."

The way he wants her is all-consuming and the strength of it prickles along her skin, making her feel giddy with power. Marcus moans, low and pained in the back of his throat when she pushes him back onto the bed and sinks down on top of him, taking him to the hilt in one slow glide.

" _Fuck_." His hands fly up to her hips, his grip tight enough to bruise the delicate skin stretched tight over the arch of each hipbone, but he seems content to let her set the pace.

Rolling her hips slowly, Abby acclimates himself to his girth, glad she'd had a chance to orgasm before attempting it after a year alone. "You feel good." As dirty talk goes it's hardly exciting, but he _does_ ; impossibly good, like he's leeching the fear and guilt away with his touch, leaving nothing but pleasure.

He exhales like he's been struck, lashes long and dark against his skin as his eyes flutter shut.

"Abby, _please_."

Light plays across their skin, white and opalescent as Abby's skin starts to glow like she's brought down and swallowed the moon, leaving smears of that light everywhere their bodies touch.

"How..." Marcus lifts a hand to touch one of the patches, childlike wonder widening his eyes.

"Magic." She whispers the word like a benediction into his mouth and the light spills between their lips as they kiss, sparks off his hand when he runs it up her side and over her breasts then up to her face, tracing her features with fingers that shake.

He glows with his own light when he spills inside her, panting into her mouth and leeching her light into himself until it's _theirs_ , tying them together into some indistinguishable, larger whole.

Abby comes back to herself in pieces: the way the sheets feel cool on her skin when she topples sideways, the little hairs on his forearm brushing against her shoulder as he slings an arm around her to pull her close again.

They drift for what feels like days, but the waning light outside says it's only been an hour or so.

"What was that?" Marcus coughs, clearing his throat, awe worked into every syllable.

"You see, Marcus, when a grownup lady and a man like each other very much..." He growls in mock-anger and leans over to kiss her again, stealing the rest of the joke before she can get it out along with her breath.

"What was it, Abby?" He whispers the question into her hair, voice soft. "What are you doing to me?"

She laughs, stroking her thigh along his own, glancing over a patch of knotted scar tissue that makes her constant, metronomic motion slow. _What are you doing to me_. What _did_ she do?

"You have a scar on your leg."

He blinks. "I fell out of one of mom's trees when I was a kid. Why..."

Pulling away from him feels unnatural, and Abby shivers despite the warmth of the room. "I have to go, Marcus. I need to..." Struggling into her clothes, she evades his hands and jams her feet into her boots without bothering to find her socks again. "Get home. I'm sorry."

She closes the door on his burgeoning protests and demands for an explanation, leaning her forehead against it as the facts coalesce into something larger. The kids. The sandwiches. His _scar_.

It's unfair. So incredibly unfair, that she'd find someone who might be able fill the hole Jake left and his feelings aren't real, just the product of a spell cast by a desperate little girl two decades ago.

 _Mom_. Her head snaps up, Clarke's voice clear as a bell in her ear. _Mom, mom!_

She takes off at a run, already halfway down the block when a second voice joins the chorus on the wind. "Abby... Abby, I need you."

 _Callie_.

She runs faster.

 

* * *

 

Abby's exit leaves him feeling bereft. Witch or not, she's done something to him. Something wonderful, and damn her for not seeing it.

A knock at the door makes him smile. "Did you forget..."

"She left." Bellamy's hard to read when he wants to be, but for now the flat disapproval is clear. "She was _running_."

The subtext is clear: what did you do to make her run? They've managed to carve out a peaceful existence together, the three of them, but Bellamy's skepticism of men is a holdover from his life before Marcus entered it. Not for the first time, Marcus wishes Aurora had just _asked_ for help, let him find out how parenting would look for a single man and US Marshal before it had been the only option left. Maybe then Bellamy might have escaped scarred but still open, like Octavia.

"Abby's all right, she just..." He pauses. "Running? How fast?"

"Fast." Bellamy sniffs, his posture easing a little. "Are you going to follow her?"

"Stay with your sister, Bellamy." The mutinous jut to his chin spells out exactly what Bellamy thinks of the order. "Not for your protection. For hers. Whatever's happening right now, she needs to be safe."

"I'll stay." He doesn't sound happy about it, but Octavia's safety is the only thing worth more to him than his own stubborn will. "Make sure Clarke and Abby are safe, too." The hug Bellamy springs on him is a shock, but Marcus relaxes into it once the surprise passes. "And you."

Marcus has to swallow hard to clear the lump in his throat. "I will."

The hug is over almost as soon as it began and Bellamy points in the direction Abby went before jamming his hands in his pockets. "You should hurry."


	5. Chapter 5

Clarke is screaming for her as she throws the door open, voice high and terrified. "Mom! Mom, mom, mom!" She repeats the word over and over until it blurs into a unintelligible stream, pulsing in Abby's blood as she takes the stairs two at a time.

"Clarke! Honey, I'm he—" Clarke's wrapping thin arms around her waist before she can get the last word out, body trembling from head to toe.

"It's aunt Callie. I didn't do anything, mom, she just started _yelling_ and then she fell down, and she won't answer me, and," Clarke breaks off, breathing coming in fast, panicked bursts.

Forcing herself to project calm, Abby rubs her shoulders. "I'll take care of her, but I need you to wait downstairs, okay?" Which won't do much if the dread building in the core where her magic rests is a portent and not just a response to the howling and thumping behind the attic door. "Actually, I want you to walk to the hotel. Marshal Kane is in room nineteen, tell him I need him then _stay there_ , Clarke. Octavia and Bellamy will be there." Clarke looks ready to protest, and Abby kneels down to look her in the eye. "I promise you, Clarke, I'll be okay, but I need you to _go_."

"I love you, mom." Clarke buries her face in Abby's neck, and Abby savors the feeling, trying to trap it close against her heart and use it as a shield.

"I love you too. Now, go." Drawing back, Abby stands and looks at the door, waiting until she hears the sound of the front door to step into the attic.

Callie is on her bed, writhing against the covers, her face twisted in a rictus of pain. She doesn't seem to notice Abby's presence, just carries on with that horrible screaming.

" _Jesus Christ_." Marcus' voice is vehement, hushed like he's in a church. "Abby, what..."

Tearing her eyes away from Callie, Abby blinks. "How did you know—"

"I didn't. After you left, I followed you, and Clarke said you needed me. She's waiting downstairs... Abby, what's wrong with her?"

"I don't know."

It's too late to worry about Clarke's presence now and as one, they both turn back to the bed and Callie, just in time to see her body bow away from in a painful arch, held aloft by some invisible hand. She screams again and collapses like a puppet with its strings cut, the room oppressively quiet now that she's silent.

"Marshal Kane." Diana's voice is as recognizable as it is impossible, even with a new lower note that sounds like rocks scraping across each other. "It's been too long." When Abby blinks she's standing by the bed, flickering into being out of nothing and stroking Callie's brow. "And the sister. Hello, Abby."

Marcus draws his gun, circling so his body is between her and Diana's shade. "Abby, stay behind me."

Inappropriate laughter bubbles up in her throat. "She's _dead_ , Marcus. I don't think a gun is much use right now."

"You should listen to her, Marcus." Diana steps away from the bed and towards Abby, cruel smile reassembling her features into a funeral mask. "My business here is with the sisters, not you. Abby and I just need to have a little talk, woman to woman."

"You're not laying a hand on her." Marcus positions himself between them again, gun defiantly up. "I don't care _what_ the hell you are, you're not touching either of them."

Rolling her eyes, Diana fixes Marcus with a saccharine smile. " _Men_. Fine, marshal, you can be first." With a flicker and a pop like a badly spliced film reel, she's in front of Marcus, plunging one insubstantial hand into his chest.

Marcus' howl of pain drowns out everything else, and Abby watches in stunned, helpless slow motion as he falls to his knees, Diana's fist riding him to the ground. Then there's a quiet thud as Marcus' badge hits the ground and Diana's the one screaming, stumbling backwards and staring at her blistered palm.

She turns on Marcus with a sub bass growl, and Abby shakes herself from her shocked paralysis. If she can get to his side before Diana reaches him again, if she can _save_ him... Desperate to close the gap between them, Abby misses the speculative glance he gives his badge and the way his face hardens as he holds it up, eyes bouncing between the star and Diana like he can't believe his own actions.

It's impossible to miss the way she shrieks and flickers out of being again, seeming to dissolve from the force.

"Marcus."

On the bed, Callie stirs. "Ab?"

Marcus is still holding his badge aloft, but he lowers his arm when she looks at him, face still drained of all color. "Go to her. I'll... I need air."

 

* * *

 

The breeze off the sea is bracing, and the clean salt and night air helps clear his head. What it doesn't do is explain a damn thing he's seen in the last day, and Marcus turns the facts over and over in his mind, trying to align them in a way that leads to any conclusion but _ghosts_.

Scrubbing his hands over his face and dimly reminding himself to shave before heavy stubble transitions into a beard, Marcus runs it through again. His head jerks up when someone knocks on the wood above his head, hand going instinctively for his gun.

"It's just me."

"Abby." He lowers his hand, but if anything the tension radiating off him in waves ratchets up another notch. "What the hell just happened in there? Was she—what, a ghost? A... fuck, I don't know, a demon? Are they real, too?"

"No demon. Just... a really angry ghost."

"'Just'." He snorts, raking a hand through his hair. "Is she gone?"

"Yes."

He absorbs that, hand coming up to rest on the badge in his pocket, safe again and in its place with Abby's letter. "I killed her?"

"In a manner of speaking. She's gone, at least."

"I just killed a ghost with my badge?" She has to know how that sounds.

Abby shakes her head, wry smile touching her mouth while her eyes stay sad. "Also in a manner of speaking. Symbols have power, Marcus. _Belief_ has power. You believe in the power of your badge, so..."

"So you're telling me that my belief in the rule of law killed the ghost, _through_ the badge." She nods. "That's crazy. Abby, you have to know how crazy that sounds."

"I do. But that doesn't make it any less true."

He can't deny that; they were both there, and no matter what logic tells him, experience says to believe what he sees and not what he thinks he _should_ see. "All right. All right, okay. It's over, then."

"No, it's not." Her hand burns through his sleeve like a brand, searing him right down to the bone. "I still killed her, Marcus. And you still know I killed her." She touches his breast pocket now, palm flattened over the rapid thump of his heart. "And this is still your badge."

"I don't care." The words come from a place deeper than thought, and once they're out his worldview realigns once again: he doesn't care. Not about the law, not now. Not when it's Abby on the other side of the scale. "You want to know how many times I read your letter? _Thousands_. I fell in love with the woman in that letter even before we met."

She makes a small, pained sound and he cups her cheek in one hand, tilting her face up to his. "I love you, Abby. I came here to find you. I don't know how, but I knew you needed me."

"No, you came because I made you love me."

The blood freezes in his veins, and his hand drops to his side. "What are you talking about?"

"When I was a little girl... I was angry, after my mother died. And I was scared, because so I thought if I ever fell in love I'd end up doing what she did."

All at once, he relaxes. "So, you cast a spell?" When she was a child, before she could have known he was alive to cast it on him. If it had been after he arrived, and she had some way of plunging her hands into his head like Diana had his chest and tampering with his memories... but she didn't. He knows with a bone deep certainty that even if it was in her power, she wouldn't do that to anyone.

She nods miserably. "To create a man who couldn't exist. I thought if I made up someone perfect, I'd be safe."

"You didn't make me up, Abby. I'm right here. I'm not perfect, but I'm real."

"But are your feelings?"

"Stop it. Don't do that, Abby. I know what I feel."

"Fine. What about why you feel it?"

"Hell, Abby, why does anybody love someone? Because I _do_."

"Because I cast—"

"Because I _do_. You can't convince me otherwise."

She sighs, deflating. "All right, you love me. But Marcus... even if it weren't the spell, you're the one who knows what happened to Diana." He's already decided to find a way to pass Diana's death off as anything but murder, and it takes a second for Abby's meaning to penetrate but she's off again before he can say so and take that roadblock off the table. "If I let you stay, you'd never know if I did it because I didn't want to go to prison."

It's on the tip of his tongue to correct her. There are two inevitable truths staring him in the face when it comes to Diana Sydney; he'll have to lie about what happened if he wants what's right to be done, not just what's legal, and no matter what lie he tells, Abby won't be part of it.

She's scared, he realizes. _I'm sure they told you all kinds of stories about those crazy women out on the cliff, worshipping the devil and killing their husbands._ The curse she puts so much stock in means if he stays, she'll lose him.

"All right, Abby. If that's how you feel..." She nods, not meeting his eyes. "All right." Stepping away from her feels like Diana's hand is trying to rip his heart straight out of him again, blocking out everything else. In the same way he'd known she needed him he knows there's a twin of that pain echoed back in Abby's chest. "I can't make you believe me, and I've got to get back home. Figure out how I explain this in my report. We'll see what happens after that, where we both end up."

He hopes against hope she'll tell him to stop. That she's reconsidered and wants him to stay, but she only stares at him with wide, sad eyes, framed in moonlight against the empty sky in a pale imitation of the way she'd glowed, boneless and satisfied in his arms.

"Belief has power, right? That's what you said. So take your own advice. That curse has power over you because you believe it does." Her face is remote, eyes sheened with tears, but Marcus steels himself against reaching for her again. "I love you, Abby. And not because of a spell. You may not be ready to believe in that over your curse, but I am."

When he walks away, she doesn't try to stop him.

 

* * *

 

Abby trudges back up the porch stairs, sending Clarke up to get ready for bed with a promise to explain later. She can feel Marcus' absence like an open wound; it's too soon to sit and try to sift through the details, deciding which ones are enough to explain things to Clarke without terrifying her further. Taking the rest of the night to sleep and come up with a story is a better use of her time.

Clinging to the edge of the kitchen island, Abby takes three deep breaths, centering herself and trying to keep her knees from bucking. Callie is safe. She can cling to that, and distract herself with making sure she's all right.

"Abby." As if she's summoned her, Callie wraps her arms around Abby, nuzzling into her hair. Her grip is just a little too tight, but so is Abby's own.

"Cal. Oh, I was so worried." Abby pauses, tensing. "...Cal?" Her nuzzling has turned to deep, loud breaths, like an animal scenting its prey.

"Hello, Abby." It's Diana's voice that exits Callie's throat, and Abby stands rooted to the spot as she moves in to try and kiss her. "My _beautiful_ sister."

Abby jerks away once their lips brush, jolted into action. "Get the hell away from me."

"Oh, come on. Callie loves you so much. Don't you want to let her show it?"

"You shut your filthy mouth about my sister." This time when Diana reaches for her, Abby grabs a cookbook and brains her with it, closing her eyes before impact and concentrating on _Diana_ , not the body she's inhabiting. Still, hitting Callie feels like absorbing a blow herself.

"Mom, I heard a crash." Clarke's footsteps echo as she thuds down the stairs, pausing cautiously on the landing. "What happened?"

Struggling to find an answer, Abby is saved by a sardonic voice from the doorway. "Your mom has gotten us into a pickle, kiddo. But don't worry, we'll sort it all out."

 _Raven_. Abby sags in relief, dropping the book to the ground with a heavy thud. In all her life, she hasn't found a problem short of death Raven can't fix.

"Clarke, I want you to go take all the pictures off the walls." Raven's voice is casual, but she angles her body so Clarke can't step further into the kitchen and get a good look at Callie's still body, crumpled on the floor where she landed.

"All of them?"

"All of them." Once she's gone, Raven leaves her post at the door and pulls Abby into a hug. "Be glad I went with pickle. My first instinct was 'total clusterfuck'." Shaking her head, she looks down at Callie with sympathy. "All right, let's get to work. Drag her into the living room and sit her down in one of the chairs. I'll tie her up while you round us up a coven."

Already bending down to pull Callie off the cold floor, Abby looks up. "A coven?"

"Nine women. Twelve, if you can swing it."

"Where am I supposed to find them?"

Raven hasn't treated her like a foolish child since she _was_ a child, and it was rare even then. The look she gives Abby in response to her anxious question reminds her that to Raven, everyone is a child.

"That's something you'll have to figure out." Chastened, Abby nods. "And Abby? Figure it out fast."

 

* * *

 

Jackson is an obvious call and she almost makes it, but he's not a woman. He's also too like her to have a mental rolodex of women willing to drop everything at a moment's notice.

"Hey, Miz G!"

Harper is exactly the kind of person who might have a list like that. "Hi, Harper. Listen, I need you to do me a favor..."

 

* * *

 

Clearing the living room is short work, thanks to Raven's habit of preferring open space to make maneuvering the brace less of a chore. Once that's done they untie Callie, Abby laying her on the floor with infinite care and lifting her head to put one of the couch pillows underneath it while Raven carefully builds a circle of salt around her.

By the time they finish, the doorbell rings and twenty-odd women stand outside the house, Harper at their head, brightly knit cap a beacon in the darkness. Abby draws her aside as the rest of her host pours into the living room to greet Raven, hair brushing her shoulders as she blinks in disbelief at their number. There are women who used to hurl taunts across the fence at her when they were children, blinking wide-eyed in wonder at the object of their hatred over the years, none of that fear on display now.

"How did you find this many people?"

"Are you kidding? I had to tell a couple people they couldn't come. I thought they might not be respectful. But other than them I thought hey, maybe more people meant more power? They all wanted to see the house, and when I explained about Callie's ex it convinced the people who weren't in just to rubberneck." Harper's cheerful as ever, but there's steel under her smile that Abby hasn't seen before. It fades away as she beams at Abby, pleased her idea worked. "So, it's okay?"

"It's more than okay. Thank you, Harper."

She nods, reaching out to pat Abby on the shoulder. "I just wanted to say, before we start? I'm really glad you felt comfortable reaching out to me. And coming out at all, it's so cool. Hey, listen, do you think maybe we should do something at the shop with spells? Like, is there one that makes soap better? That would sell out in a second, just so everybody could say they bought it."

Raven's voice comes from the living room, rescuing Abby from a conversation she's not sure how to tackle yet for the second time in an hour. "Abby? It's time." Bringing Harper with her, Abby cuts her way through the mass of bodies and makes it to Raven's side. "We're going to take this back to basics. Everybody circle up and join hands."

Once they're all in place and clasping hands, she nods in satisfaction. "All right, ladies. _Tu ne cede malis_ —say it."

" _Tu ne cede malis_ ," the room choruses back, stumbling over the unfamiliar words.

" _Sed contra audentior ito_."

They don't need prompting to repeat her this time, and Raven nods in satisfaction. "Good. Now together: _tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito_."

She says it again, and again, leading the chant as it gains volume with each woman's growing confidence. In the circle, Diana growls, eyes giving off shine like an animal.

"She's _mine_. You think this is enough to stop me? A makeshift coven of teenagers and _housewives_?"

The chant gathers steam, shouting her down as the house rattles down to the foundation along with Diana's agonized scream. She rushes the circle, flying backward along with the rest of the room as the power Raven laid into the salt reacts with an earsplitting pop and does what it was meant to, keeping Callie contained at any cost.

"Callie? Cal!" Abby strains against Raven's grip but her hand has turned to iron, possible to yank away from.

" _No_." Raven won't let go, and she uses her grip to make Abby look at her. "Think, Abigail. If you break the circle, that's the ballgame. She's free."

Abby stops tugging against her hand. Callie looks so fragile and the pillow that might offer her at least scant comfort has been kicked aside. The urge to cross the line and put it beneath her head again is nearly overwhelming, but the wisdom of Raven's words can't be ignored.

"I won't." Raven still doesn't let go. "Raven, I swear." Reluctantly, her purchase on Abby's wrist loosens and falls away. Swallowing hard, Abby rubs at the bruises forming on her wrist but doesn't cross the line, laying down on the floor just outside of it, cheek nearly brushing the crystals.

Time passes but it's only measurable in the ebb and flow of muted conversations in the background. Everything else is Callie, Callie who is suffering and needs her and just half an inch out of her reach.

"Just let her do it, Abby." It's her sister looking back at her now, Diana's presence drawing back enough to let her beg where Diana had commanded. "I'm so tired."

"No."

"So tired." Callie rolls her cheek against the floor, breathing shallow. "She's here for me. If you let her take me, no one else has to suffer."

"No." Furious, Abby slams a palm down on the floor, making someone behind her jump. "No, _I_ suffer. We're going to grow old together, remember? You and me and Raven and a million cats. Nothing can ever keep us apart. You _promised_ me, Callie."

"I love you so much, Ab." Callie rests her fingertips at the edge of the line, only salt between her hand and Abby's. "My big sister, always taking care of me."

" _Always_ , Cal."

She smiles and Abby's heart drops, spotting the intent in her eyes before Callie opens her mouth to make it real. "My turn now."

Closing her eyes and breathing out, she slumps to the side, hand falling away from the circle and back to her side.

"No." Raven's brace jingles behind her, but Abby barely hears it. "No, I'm not going to accept that." Pushing up from the ground, she evades any attempts to hold her back and heads for the kitchen and her last hope at saving Callie. "No. Raven, get them back in the circle. I know what to do."

 

* * *

 

Cracking open a bottle of vodka, Abby brushes away a good inch of salt, dragging her nails along the wood with an ugly scratching sound in the same motion. "Diana. Time to wake up, Diana." She pours out a shot's worth onto the ground in front of her breach in the circle before taking a long slug of her own. "Callie told how much you like your vodka."

She sets the bottle down with a thump and Diana's eyes open. She draws herself up, eyes darting around the room like a trapped animal.

"Eyes over here. Yeah, that's good." Nudging the bottle a few inches forward, Abby forces her mouth into a smile. "I want to talk to you. I thought a little booze might wake you up."

There's nothing human left in the way she cocks her head to think it over, just bestial intelligence and something to the way she holds herself that reminds Abby of a tiger readying itself to leap.

When Diana fulfills that leashed tension's promise, she's ready for it and twists her body so they fall with Abby on top of her and Callie's right arm out at an awkward angle. "Raven, now!"

The metal of Callie's pocket knife is warm from Raven's hands when Abby fumbles it open, prying Callie's palm reopen to slice open the fine line of scar tissue bisecting her palm, repeating the words she used in the attic when they'd first made their promise before doing the same to her own and linking their hands, blood dripping hot and wet down her wrist.

"Now my blood is your blood, and your blood is mine. It's _our_ blood, Cal."

Diana moans and goes limp. Abby rolls them both into the circle, and when Raven pushes the salt back into place and closes them both in the circle, the world goes white.

When her vision clears, it's Callie looking back up at her.

 

* * *

 

The letter comes three weeks later. It's from the Marshal's office, but unless they've started mailing people the handcuffs they're required to put on and bring back in themselves, it's not anything she needs to worry will mean the end to the fragile peace carved back out inside the house on the cliff.

Abby leaves it on the counter, unopened, all afternoon.

"Abby? Ab, there's a letter..." Callie's voice floats from the kitchen to the growroom. "Abby?"

"Back here."

She's already opening it as she crosses the threshold. "Did you see this?"

"I saw it."

Swatting her arm with the envelope, Callie sighs. "You, my favorite and best big sister, are a coward."

Abby gapes at her, momentarily speechless. "I was waiting for you!"

"You were hiding from him."

"Mmph." Abby doesn't deny it, but she does take the envelope back and open it. "I think I liked it better when you weren't on his side." Callie laughs, and Abby shakes her head, beginning to read. "Dear Ms. Griffin, after completing our investigation, we have concluded..." Relief snatches her voice away and she falters, pressing her free hand to her chest.

"What? Abby, that son of a bitch better not have..."

"It's not him, it's the Marshals Service. They're saying... she died. They found this." Diana's necklace spills out of the envelope into her hand, silver links jingling mockingly. "In the house. They said was a fire... natural death. No charges filed."

Callie takes the necklace and drops it in the clippings bin without another glance, all her focus on Abby. "He lied for you."

"Yeah, I think... I think he did." Swallowing hard, she sets down the pot in her hands and looks up at Callie, willing her to know what the right thing to do is when Abby can't see it herself. "Did I make the right choice, telling him to leave?"

"Oh, Ab." Callie's kiss is affectionate, brushing brushing across her hairline as she wraps her in a hug. "If you have to ask me that, you already know the answer."

 

* * *

 

She goes out to the cliff that night, barefoot and carrying the same bowl she'd used to cast the spell she thought would ensure the man she called would never hear her.

The petals leap into the air this time as if they've been shot from a cannon, zipping across the water and carrying the words she can't make herself put on paper along with them.

 

* * *

 

Life without Abby follows a particular pattern. Wake up, fend off Octavia's ferocious glares and Bellamy's icy disapproval, spend the workday trying not to think about Abby, do the same once he's home and at night—at night he dreams. He's spent all his life pining for the idea of her, and now that she's real it's worse.

 _Marcus_.

At first, he chalks hearing her voice up to wishful thinking and a lack of sleep. He's in the garden, struggling to make something of the few rose bushes that survived his inattention and lack of skill and the garden always makes him think of Abby.

 _Marcus, I need you_.

That's when the shower of petals rains down on his head, fluttering down to land like butterflies on his head and shoulders and arms, the rest coming gently to rest on the ground.

"...you've got flowers on you." For the first time in weeks, there's no anger in Octavia's voice, just curiosity and a little jealousy. "What happened?"

Turning to face the side door with a light heart, Marcus smiles. "What would you two say about heading back to Arkadia?"

 

* * *

 

Abby knows without question he's back on the island before she has any proof of it. She can taste it on the air, feels the change as his foot steps off the ferry and back onto dry land, the last page of a book turned before it's time to begin the next.

"Octavia!" Clarke's shriek is ecstatic, carrying all the way across the yard.

"Clarke!" Octavia's bellow in return is even louder, and they collapse in a heap together on the lawn, Bellamy standing a few feet away, his own smile nearly splitting his face.

"I think they might be happy to back."

Looking up and shading her eyes against the glare, Abby grins at the man standing over her, sun forming a halo of light around him.

"You got my message."

"I did." When he offers to hand to help her up a spark jumps between their hands, bright as a miniature sun. Hauling her easily to her feet, he brings their joined hands to his lips, brushing them across the back of hers. "I told you, this is where I end up. I was just waiting for you to figure that out, too."

Clarke and Octavia make obnoxious sounds in the background when she presses up on her toes and kisses him, the dirt on her fingers staining his shirt when she fists her hands in the fabric and drags him closer, ignoring Callie and Raven's raucous laughter.

Having them all here is the last puzzle piece fitting neatly in place and displaying the life she's been working towards all this time.

 

* * *

 

"Do you have the pumpkins?"

"...I thought you were getting them."

"No, I'm on cider duty. I was very clear about that." Callie holds up a six pack, shaking it a little in cheery emphasis.

Abby squint at the label. "For the _kids_ , Cal. I'm absolutely sure I specified 'non-alcoholic' on the cider, even if I apparently misplaced thirty giant, bright orange gourds."

"Oops?" Abby shoots her a look and Callie tosses her head back, laughing and shoving another crate forward with a booted foot. "You're too easy. Here, one full crate of Martinellis, and I have a literally every plastic champagne flute in town in the car. I thought we could set it out in trays for the customers."

"You're a hero." Pressing a kiss to her cheek, Abby takes the crate and moves it behind the counter.

"Where are the munchkins? I told Octavia and Clarke I'd paint their faces, give them some warpaint to go with their costumes before trick-or-treating starts."

"How'd that happen? They were a princess and a cat when they left for school."

"There was some debate over costumes, so I pointed out there's no rule against warrior cats or warrior princesses, and that getting to wear two costumes is a little like having two Halloweens."

"A _hero_." Callie's taken to the cool aunt role with gusto, and averted crises like this are worth a million 'but aunt Callie said we could have ice cream later!'s. "Bellamy is meeting them at school and walking them over here, then Marcus and I get to split candy holdup duty."

"...I'm not sure if that's leftover Halloween hate or a plan to rob your children of candy."

"It can't be both?" Even if it turned out a single embrace was enough to break a centuries long curse, a year is hardly long enough to break the training of a lifetime avoiding anything to do with the holiday.

"Callie!" Octavia is audible through the windows, and Abby sighs as she smashes her eyeliner-blackened nose to the glass, cat ears dangling precariously as she bounces on her toes. "Callie, come on! Bellamy said if we don't hurry, he's leaving without us."

Abby's forehead wrinkles. "Octavia, honey, Marcus and I are taking you. Bellamy has a party to get to."

"Surprise." Callie's arms wrap around her from behind.

"This way, I get to steal their candy." Octavia's hitting her growth spurt but Bellamy towers over her now, his shoulders just starting to broaden to match the height. "And then you and Marcus can spend more than five minutes together."

"Marcus gave him fifty bucks to skip the party." Clarke pipes up from behind Bellamy, wriggling past him to throw her arms around both Abby and Callie as best she can. "Aunt Callie, I want bat warrior makeup."

Abby looks to Bellamy, who shrugs unashamedly. "That too."

"It can be both, Ab. Isn't that what you said?" Abby aims an elbow back into Callie's side.

"Stop helping him."

A knock on the open door interrupts the argument. "As nice as it is to see you all gang up on someone else, I think Abby's due a night off."

Marcus leans against the outside wall, the last of today's sunlight glinting off the silver in his beard and hair.

"Fifty bucks, huh?"

His unabashed shrug is a mirror of Bellamy's. "I would have given him a hundred, but he didn't think to try and bargain me up."

"Hey!"

"Let that be a lesson to you," he says soberly, mouthing twitching at the corners. "Well, Abby. Are you ready?"

Taking his arm, she smiles. "I am."

**Author's Note:**

> The Washed Clean soundtrack: http://8tracks.com/glitteration/ready-to-begin


End file.
